The latest Louise Penny, one of the very few authors I will buy on day one, not waiting for a sale or anything.  I love these books, I love Armand Gamache and I love all the characters in the books and I haven't read a Gamache book I haven't adored yet.

And this one is no exception. 

As always, Louise manages to weave the questions of real life into the Inspector's search for answers to the latest crime..  I tried to read it slow and savour it, but you know, I couldn't  I started it late Saturday afternoon and finished it Sunday morning.  And I laughed and I cried and I marveled at what some might call the human condition that Louise sees and writes about so well. 

This time, I wasn't so sure about the guilty party up until quite near to the reveal.  That always makes me happy. :) 

All the beloved characters are back, feeling just like old friends.  This time, I felt like we spent a little more time with the gang from le Sureté than the bunch from Three Pines.  And that's not a slam, because I love le Sureté that Louise has created and could only wish that the real one was getting the same much needed cleaning up! 

Now it looks like we're going to love my beloved Jean-Guy and his family to Paris and I'm just heart-broken about it!  Jean-Guy is so much the Quebecois heart of the Gamache books and he's so familiar to me, I am going to miss him horribly!  Unless something happens to bring him home.  Nothing bad! No tragedy!  But he needs to be home and he needs to be at Armand's side somehow.  :)

Anyway, I loved the book just like I knew I would and I'm going to find it so hard to wait patiently until next year and the next Gamache tale!

My birthday present to me. It's so very rare for me to pay $15 for an ebook, but this is one of my very favourite of favourite authors and it was my birthday the week it came out, so...  I gave myself a gift!

Anyway...

It was like coming home.

I came to a realisation about myself and the Gamache books when I was about halfway through this one.  They are perfect for people watchers.  Perfect for people who love to watch TV shows like Survivor and Big Brother because they want to see how the people will react and what they will become in different situations.  There is a lot of people watching in these books, and speculating and looking for the 'why' of things.  I love it!

All of our friends are back in Three Pines, but this time the focus is more on the Sureté side of the family than the civilians. There are parallel storylines here - the case of the will, the murder of one of the heirs in said will, and the fallout from the previous book with the drugs Armand was forced to let slip through his hands in order to catch the bigger fish. 

I wish I was better at writing these things so that I could explain why they're so good, but suffice it to say that Armand Gamache, is a wonderfully flawed hero and the family that he makes around him is also filled with real people who are alternately flawed and heroic in their times. 

I don't know that I'm completely thrilled with the way this book ended.  Oh, don't get me wrong, the ending was perfect and filled with surprises and sadness and feel good moments, but I'm going to be really annoyed if Jean-Guy's fate is permanent!  (Although the whole theme of the student taking the place of the mentor by his actions was pretty cool.)

So, I am thinking positively that there are more Gamache tales to come and that we will be returning to Three Pines in the future.  :) 

Loved it.  Pure and simple,  I just loved it. 

Again we're in the village of Three Pines, amidst the characters we've come to love - or at least like and appreciate - and there's been trouble. 

The book jumps between two time periods.  A Montreal courtroom in the depth of a hot and humid Montreal summer and early November in our beloved Three Pines.  This is usually a set-up that I'm not fond of, but in the hands of a skilled writer, like Louise Penny, it works a charm.  Scenes in the one setting set up revelations in the other and I found myself on the edge of my seat waiting for these other shoes to drop with great anticipation.  I actually found myself forcing myself to put the book down so I wouldn't gobble it up too fast. 

And the characters.  My God, you'd think that after a dozen books there'd be nothing more to learn about Gamache and Beauvoir and the rest of the crew.  But there is!  More flaws, more good things, more... well, more humanity.  Because that's the strength of these novels.  Not just the mystery or the convoluted plot, but the characters and their basic humanity.  I defy anyone to not be able to find themselves reflected in one, some or all of them. 

I cried at the end of the book.  I always cry at some point in the Gamache books.  :)  Oh, it was truly delicious!  I cannot... CANNOT wait for the next one and I don't know that Louse has even started THINKING about it!  *LOL*

And Louise Penny hits it out of the park once again.  I cannot tell you how much I adore her characters and her stories and her insight into the human mind and all the messy emotions that roil within. 

Yes, there's a murder mystery in the story, but Gamache stories are SO SO much more than just a murder mystery.  It's the motives, the whys, the reasons that people do what they do, are who they are and the choices that we all make. 

When I finish one of Louise Penny's books, I always feel so inadequate when writing up my thoughts.  All I can say aside from professing my love for the characters old and new, the familiar locations in which the stories are set, the puzzlement of the mystery and how it manages to affect the denizens of Three Pines, and the easy yet deep way the books are written is that I wish there were a ton more to read.  This is the 12th book in and I haven't felt once that I was reading a retread of what had come before.  Armand et all always have something to teach me.  Some surprise, some twist, some truth I hadn't seen. 

I think I spent the last 20 or so pages of the book wiping tears away.  Rip my heart out, Louise!  Rip it right out!  *LOL* 

I am sad because I have no Gamache books left to read.  I'd been hoarding this last one for the longest time.  The next one, #13, comes out at the end of August but I find the $16 price tag a bit rich for my budget right now.  But as SOON as I can, I'll be adding it to the library, anxious to read of what's next in the lives of my favourite members of the Sureté du Quebec.

Chief Inspector Gamache - Book 11

I think this is one of the best Gamache books.  Many favourite characters are back, but there is a renewed focus on Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy and Isabelle Lacoste.  Especially on Armand.  We are getting to see how he is, or isn't, dealing with retirement from the SQ.  I mean, honestly, does anyone really think that Armand will just be able to sit on the porch of his home in Three Pines reading, walking Henri, eating Reine-Marie's wonderful cooking, chatting with the denizens of our favourite Townships village?  I'm sure he'd like to think he'd be quite happy doing just that, but I think even he realises that he might be fooling himself.

The mystery is interesting.  A BFG - and that's not Big Friendly Giant, my friends - is at the center of case that begins with the death/murder of a young boy known for his huge imagination.   I'm glad it wasn't a graphic murder, I have to say.  I don't deal well with those at the best of times, but when it's a child...  well.  I'm glad Penny did things the ways she did.  Also interesting was that there is a historical basis for the BFG.  Very cool.

But as always, the main reason I adore these books is the characters and they have all grown, changed or shown a little more of themselves in this volume and I have loved it.  I really loved the final shot (in the book, that is) of Clara - it was perfect and insightful and made me smile.

So all I have left is the latest book in the series, A Great Reckoning.  And I'm saving that for a bit.  For a special time.